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Since all polymorphism has a genetic basis, genetic polymorphism has a particular meaning: Genetic polymorphism is the simultaneous occurrence in the same locality of two or more discontinuous forms in such proportions that the rarest of them cannot be maintained just by recurrent mutation or immigration, originally defined by Ford (1940).
Polymorphisms can be identified in the laboratory using a variety of methods. Many methods employ PCR to amplify the sequence of a gene. Once amplified, polymorphisms and mutations in the sequence can be detected by DNA sequencing, either directly or after screening for variation with a method such as single strand conformation polymorphism analysis.
Molecular evolution describes how inherited DNA and/or RNA change over evolutionary time, and the consequences of this for proteins and other components of cells and organisms. Molecular evolution is the basis of phylogenetic approaches to describing the tree of life. Molecular evolution overlaps with population genetics, especially on shorter ...
A graphical representation of the typical human karyotype The human mitochondrial DNA. Human genetic variation is the genetic differences in and among populations. There may be multiple variants of any given gene in the human population , a situation called polymorphism. No two humans are genetically identical.
Bumblebees form Mullerian rings of species, and they do often exhibit polymorphism. The hoverfly species mimicking bumblebees are generally accurate mimics, and many of their species are polymorphic. Many of the polymorphisms are different between the sexes, for example by the mimicry being limited to one sex only.
As duplex DNA became the predominant form of the genetic material, the mechanism of genetic recovery evolved into the more complex process of meiotic recombination, found today in most species. It thus appears likely that sexual reproduction arose early in the evolution of cells and has had a continuous evolutionary history.
DNA methylation is a process by which methyl groups are added to the DNA molecule. Methylation can change the activity of a DNA segment without changing the sequence. Histones are proteins found in cell nuclei that package and order the DNA into structural units called nucleosomes. [citation needed]
Neutral mutation has become a part of the neutral theory of molecular evolution, proposed in the 1960s. This theory suggests that neutral mutations are responsible for a large portion of DNA sequence changes in a species. For example, bovine and human insulin, while differing in amino acid sequence are still able to perform the same function ...